


The Path Behind a Shooting Star

by SemiSolace



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Link (Legend of Zelda) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24293530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemiSolace/pseuds/SemiSolace
Summary: Wishes are funny things. Link has seen a kingdom ruined by a fight for the golden power to change things. Ghosts whisper from the sea breeze, every time he looks through his telescope at the horizon, he's looking for that promise of a future and Link can't think of a single thing to do with his wish from the Ocean King.There are people he's left behind and there are people he's fighting to keep and no matter what jokes Linebeck makes, treasure is the last thing he'll think of when he wants the impossible.
Relationships: Ciela & Link (Legend of Zelda), Fi & Link (Legend of Zelda), Linebeck & Link (Legend of Zelda), Link & Tetra
Comments: 3
Kudos: 52





	The Path Behind a Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Just before the one shot, there's a quick headcannon of mine that has impacted some characterisation pretty heavily so I should probably explain it: I think given Fi's character development in Skyward Sword, she learnt more about being human with each incarnation of the Hero she accompanies, so by Wind Waker, I decided it wouldn't be unreasonable to present her as more empathetic than she was shown to be in canon.

In another time, Link would have been offered a wish from the Ocean King too. This would be because Ciela would have huffed about Linebeck not actually doing all that much to help but still getting a very generous reward, and so Link is promised a wish he hasn't asked for. 

He lets it slide, forgotten. He has more important things to worry about, like getting the next clue from the Temple of the Ocean King, like finding a way to kill the monster that stole the life of his friend, like the feel of Tetra's stone fingers. 

He once had nightmares about his friends turning to stone, and the thought will taunt him the entire journey back to Mercay Island. He'd dreamed of a graveyard beneath the sea, the grey ghosts of the sages unmoving in Ganon's swollen shadow. Laruto and Fado, far more solid than he'd ever seen them. Then Medli and Makar, hands frozen on their instruments, never to stir up music again. The King of Red Lions, his hand still outstretched as if to let Link drag him to the surface. And Tetra, dressed in Zelda's gown, wearing Zelda's crown, and she's pristine and perfect as a statue.

She'd promised, as he'd sobbed with terror in a dark room on her ship, that she'd never be a statue. 

Now, with the smell of rotting wood making him want to choke, he reaches for her hand again. After his nightmares, she'd take his hand and guide his shaking fingers to the pulse on her wrist. It's fine, she'd say with that soft smile she seemed to save for him, see statues don't have a pulse. 

I'm here, she'd murmur as he matched his breathing to the sound of her heartbeat, you're stuck with me and I'm not going anywhere. 

Now, with his eyes blurring with tears, he stands before her. He almost can't see the fear etched onto her face, he can almost imagine her smile. But then stone fingers brush against his hand and it's not so easy to pretend anymore. Still, he reaches for her wrist and the statue is still, the statue is cold because statues don't have a pulse. 

He stands there, feeling the cold of it all slowly start to turn him numb, and remembers her promise. 

"You liar," he whispers, and forgets all about the wish.

* * *

Predictably, Linebeck is the one to bring it up next. He's standing on the dock on an island full of gorons, and Link will look at them and try very hard to not see the painted glass eyes of an ancient sage keeping watch over the Master Sword. 

He will fail. Even when Gongoron promises that they're brothers now, a part of his mind will whisper that the Hero of Time had a sworn brother among the gorons too, and that his name was Darunia. The past that he inherited won't stop haunting him just yet.  
But before all this, Linebeck stops him, a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Hey kid, before you go running off to throw yourself at some hideous monster or whatever, I have a question for you." 

Link stops. Turns. Waits. 

The sailor scratches the back of his head with one rough hand. "What will you wish for? I just realised I never asked." 

A wish? The idea catches him off guard, even though it hasn't really been all that long since it was proposed. He doesn't remember agreeing to it, but he also doesn't remember saying no. Besides, he'd thought all the things he wished for were obvious, so he wonders why Linebeck even has to ask. 

"Tetra." 

The sailor sighs. "The old man said he'd do that anyway. Were you even listening?"  
The truthful answer is no. Link wasn't listening, at least not to Oshus. There are ghosts in his skull and they have the faces of kings and princesses and sages staring from stained glass. The stories he's been told echo even as he thinks of another wish, the rush of water and a different old man letting his hand fall, letting the sea swallow him whole.

"So, your wish." Linebeck's prompt snaps him away from his memories. Maybe that was the point.

His first thought is the King, turning away to go and stand in the shadow left by Ganon's statue, the lines in his face lit by the fading glow of the Master Sword. But no, the face he remembers, the face he sees in his nightmares, is the face of a man who chose to drown. 

His second thought is for Ciela's memory, but he feels like that should be her choice, her journey. 

"I don't know." He says at last. 

Linebeck scoffs. "You don't know? You've been offered the chance of a lifetime and you don't _know_?" 

Link thinks he knows more about wishes than Linebeck, for all that the captain tells him his head must be empty. 

"Well," Ciela interrupts snidely, "whatever Link thinks of will be better than yours. Go back to dreaming of treasure." 

And so they head off to the Gorons and Link lets the subject slip from his mind. It isn't important anymore. He doesn't want treasure, he doesn't want riches, he doesn't want glory.

* * *

He wakes up screaming in the dead of night as they sail towards the Isle of Frost, and he just wants to feel safe again. 

If he were more awake and less scared, he'd maybe even be embarrassed by it. Everyone has come running. Ciela flies in frantic circles around his head and Linebeck stands in the doorway of his small room, clutching a lantern and looking rather odd without his impressive coat and even more odd with Leaf hovering over one shoulder and Neri hovering by the other. 

"Kid," Linebeck says carefully like Link is a fragile thing, "are you alright?" 

"You were screaming for someone to run... Were you having a nightmare about Gongoron?" 

"No," Link says absently past the part of him that wants Tetra here more than anything else, "it was the Helmaroc King this time." 

He knows in another time, he would have wished for his sister to be home safely. But the time for that is gone now, she's at home now and Grandma is looking after her and when Quill can find him, he delivers her letters and sometimes she even draws him pictures.

"The _what_?" Linebeck wheezes like he's been punched.

At the same time, and far louder, Ciela asks. "Who was it chasing?" 

"Aryll," Link murmurs and he's awake now and he knows he's not dreaming but he still sees the way it plays out in his mind, "it caught her." 

"Oh Link," Ciela breathes, horrified, "I'm so sorry." 

He blinks. They make it sound like she's dead. But no, back on Tetra's ship, he has all her drawings pinned up in his little cabin. There's a nice one of him sailing away on the shell of the King of Red Lions and it makes him smile and feel terribly sad at the same time. "No, she's not dead. She's safe and at home with Grandma." 

For once, Ciela and Linebeck say the same thing. "You have a family?" 

Link nods tiredly. Here in this dark cabin, lit by a fairy and a lantern, Outset Island feels a very long way away. 

"You never said!" 

"Shit, kid. Do they know about-" 

"As far as they know, I'm off happily exploring the world with Tetra and nothing is wrong at all." Link snaps. He doesn't mean to sound as angry as he does, and Gonzo has warned him of the nasty temper he has a few times, so Link has tried to be polite for as long as he can manage.

Neither Linebeck or Ciela seem offended though. Ciela settles on his head like she's trying to give him a hug and Linebeck nods jerkily. 

"Right. Can... Can I get you anything, brat?" 

Link shakes his head and the Captain excuses himself to go back to watch. Link hasn't told any lies. Not to Linebeck and not to his family. 

He's off sailing the world with Tetra. Nothing is wrong because he has a way to fix it, and they'll never know about the space between letters unless he tells them. But he won't be drawing a picture of the ghost ship for Aryll, the gesture of checking the hourglass every few minutes isn't one he plans to bring inside his grandmother's house. 

They'll never know because they'll never need to. He won't need anything from anyone, Linebeck can't give that feeling of safety back to him because it was long gone before he even met the man and it's all over now so what does it matter.

It's over. It can't hurt him anymore. 

Except he still has nightmares about a shadow in the sky getting smaller and smaller and Aryll still has nightmares about being stuck in that cage and Link thinks that wishes are rather useless at this point.

* * *

They're sailing back to Mercay Island for the next sea chart when Linebeck corners him. It'll be a long trip and Link can sort of see it coming, because he knows that the spirit and the sailor are both not saying something, and Linebeck has always had less tact. 

"Your life is pretty bad, huh." 

Link just stares at him, confused. He has absolutely no idea what the sailor is referring to specifically. 

"Kid, I'm a treasure hunter." Linebeck explains quietly, seriously. "Do you think that I don't know what the Helmaroc plumes come from?" 

Link shifts guiltily. If he'd known they were important, he might have thought twice before using the Wind Waker to scatter the nasty thing's feathers all over the Great Sea. Even now, the thought of it makes him want to smirk, so maybe he isn't all that sorry about it. 

"You've been through an awful lot brat. For what it's worth, I'm glad your family is alright."  
Link nods. He appreciates the words, especially coming from the captain who often needs to write down the things he doesn't know what to do with. Link still has that letter, the one he'd begged the postman to let him keep, tucked away in his bag. Linebeck cares, even if he doesn't show it often. 

"Besides, the bird is ancient history now. Some moron stormed the fortress it used as a nest and killed it. They call him a Hero, you know. I'll bet he's the one guy out there more insane than you." 

Link finds himself oddly reluctant to own up to the act. Ever since people find out that he was the one to take down Ganon's monsters, that he was the one to kill the evil King, they look at him differently. He can't tell what they think, but no one is the same after they find out. 

"The bird deserved it." He whispers, instead of the 'I killed it and I'm not insane' he sort of wants to say. 

"I'm not saying that it didn't," Linebeck says quickly, "just that going after it is the stupid kind of thing that gets you killed. And they say that the same guy went after the man they say made the bird. Promise me you won't do anything like that, kid?" 

Link just stares at him. "I think Bellum might be that bad." 

The sailor sighs heavily. "Yeah, what am I saying..." 

Something hard settles in his gaze, the shadows beneath his eyes seem to deepen and when he next speaks, his voice is bitter. "Go ahead and throw your life away then, brat. Just don't expect me to watch." 

"Who else would do it?" Link asks. "If I don't. Because otherwise Tetra stays as a statue and Bellum will keep looking for its next victim and nothing will change." 

Link figures he probably deserves the silent treatment he gets for the next few days, even if Ciela doesn't agree.

But it's true. They're the only ones going after the ghost ship, he's the only one to breathe in the dead air of the Temple of the Ocean King in years. And before, he was the one to climb the Tower of the Gods, he was the one to first step foot in the Temple caught between times and he was the one to piece the Triforce of Courage back together.

Even as the thought of a replacement crosses his mind, he already knows it's a fate he wouldn't wish on anyone else.

* * *

After a gruelling week of venturing into the Temple of Ocean King and fleeing away from the stale depths when the sand in the hourglass began to pool where it couldn't help him anymore, he staggers out with a sea chart clutched in a shaking fist, and his hands are still clammy when he plans the route to the remains of the Cobble Kingdom.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that sleep doesn't come easily after that, even days after he left, because the chill in that Temple has a way of working itself into his bones that takes weeks of sunlight to scrub away.

Still, he sits there in the small bed and stares at where even the spirits have managed to slip into sleep, peaceful and quiet on the strips of cloth he'd fashioned into something like a hammock for each of them.

They still give off light, even unconscious. He watches the strange shadows on the walls and lets his mind twist them into monsters before he finally forces himself to leave the bed, throws on the coat he normally wears when he's on the deck because he just knows it'll be cold and wanders down the halls. 

Linebeck is still in the middle of his shift, standing underneath the night sky and steering the ship. He sighs when he sees Link approaching. 

"Really kid? This is the third night in a row and you know I'm not taking your shifts even if you're tired." 

Link just sits down on the deck near him with a shrug. He's well aware that Linebeck will not take responsibility for him and he hadn't been about to ask. 

"Is this a recurring problem? Like did it happen before the whole Ghost Ship thing?"

Link remembers long nights curled up on the floor of the King of Red Lions, clutching a sword like Aryll used to cling to a crude plush of a pig a mother he couldn't remember had made, and kept together only by rows of his grandmother's tidy stitches. 

Now, underneath the same sky on a different ship, he nods and wonders if the stitches holding him together will ever be so neat. 

"What do you normally do when you can't sleep then?" 

That is quite a good question. Sometimes he takes the night watch with whichever one of Tetra's crew drew the short straw and by now they know not to ask questions and just offer silent companionship. Sometimes Tetra will have nightmares so he'll sit with her until she feels better. Sometimes he just sits there and thinks, too tired to leave his bed. 

Before that, though, is the answer that comes to mind first, and it's the answer he gives Linebeck. 

"A friend used to sing me lullabies." 

Linebeck chokes on whatever he's drinking from that flask. "L-lullabies?" 

"Yes." Link mumbles, too lost in memories to be properly defensive. When they'd first started, Link had thought they'd make him homesick, because his grandmother used to sing for him and he used to sing for Aryll and-

And they didn't make him homesick at all because the voice that sung to him didn't know those songs. No, he didn't know the songs she sung either, and it was a rare time indeed that he even understood the words. 

They were songs he was never supposed to hear. Kokiri lullabies, soft songs from the land that sleeps forever beneath the sea. Sometimes they were even older and she'd told him the stories that went with them too. Quick funny songs about a tiny race of people who left trinkets in long grass for children to find, long loving songs about chasing sunsets through an endless sky. 

Even now, months later, something compels him to share the irrational fear with Linebeck. "I felt like a little kid listening to them." 

She'd told him, back when he'd whispered the same fear to her, that the last person she'd sung to had been an adult and he found the same comfort in her songs that Link did. She told him that she was not the best with emotions, but she did not think shame was the right thing for him. 

Linebeck, though, has a very different reaction. "Well, I suppose you _are_ a kid..." 

He trails off into a thoughtful silence. He stares at the night sky like he's looking for shooting stars. Link knows better and watches the sea, but perhaps the Captain is right and these waters are actually safe. 

The sailor promptly makes up his mind. "Alright, fine. Not a word of this gets back to that annoying fairy friend of yours. Or the other two, for that matter." 

Link blinks. What?

"And I don't know any lullabies, okay?"

Linebeck is not actually a bad singer. His voice isn't as pretty as the one that resides in the Master Sword, but Link doesn't think that anyone will ever match her. He was right, he doesn't know any lullabies, but he does know sea shanties and drinking songs. 

Sometimes they're even songs Link knows. Linebeck makes substitutions for some verses and adds words that would make most responsible adults gasp and cover the ears of listening children. 

But Linebeck isn't that kind of parent and Link isn't that kind of child. Link is the kind of child who has nothing to wish for, the kind of child that can fight monsters that rip most warriors apart, and the kind of child that surprises himself by laughing at silly songs in the early hours of the morning. 

Maybe he should wish for things like this. Except he already has them and he doesn't think they'd be as special if he had to force the moment, so he stops the thought quickly and when he drifts off to sleep on the cold deck, he doesn't dream of anything, but he wakes up on his small bed with Linebeck's coat thrown over him.

* * *

After everything, Link is tired. It all seems to have gone so fast, first picking his way through the weeds on the shattered pavements of a dead kingdom, one that sees the sky instead of the sea, then he was duelling Jolene for the last time and she'd said goodbye with something like concern on her face, then he was standing in the heat of a forge, fingers curled around the hilt of a sword that seemed to sing in his grip, like-

But this land is not Hyrule. Hyrule had Temples, but nothing that spiralled so deep beneath the earth as the hall of worship for the Ocean King. Hyrule's tragedy was a man and he used monsters to hurt people, this world's tragedy was a monster and it uses a man to try and hurt Link.

But at the end of it all, the monster's grip slackens, first on Ciela, then on Linebeck and then on life and it dissolves into sand, blown away by the breeze. Ciela flies over to rest on his head with shaky wings and Linebeck moves jerkily and pushes himself to his feet, stiff like he can't quite remember how to move with Bellum gone. 

Link nearly falls down as Ciela and Linebeck rise. But by this time, Tetra has jumped over to the larger part of the broken ship and picks her way across the rotting wood. Some would call what they share a hug, but it's more like she's holding him up.

He doesn't pay attention as the Ocean King, in his huge true form, starts to speak. He's too busy thinking that he knows how this ends. Everything settles and all that is left is the goodbye, the walking away and the echoes of lullabies and drowning. He already knows that Ciela will leave and Linebeck will leave, and-

And Tetra elbows him in the ribs to get his attention. Everyone is looking at him and he hasn't heard a thing any of them have said. Still, they're expectant and he doesn't know what more anyone could possibly ask of him at this point.

"Link," The Ocean King prompts gently, "your wish." 

Oh. That. He'd completely forgotten. 

Aryll would always be the one to point out a shooting star. Link would let her peer through the telescope so she had a better chance of watching it fall. He wouldn't waste time on wishing, but would follow the pathway the star left and end up in the same place. 

The things worth having, a future, a family, you don't wish for them, you have to make them or walk there yourself. That is the path left for Link, that is the path the Hero must make: following in the footsteps of a wish, making the things other people wish for. 

And if he tried to hold a star in his hands, it would burn him. The brand he carried was gold once, and now it's gone it's just a scar, and that future the King spoke about is just a wish. Wishes are empty things, the making is what does the granting.

But still, he thinks, if he could have anything, anything at all, if he could ask the impossible, the things he cannot make, what would he ask for. 

"Do," and his throat is dry, "do you know what I am?" 

The Ocean King blinks at him. "Yes. I assure you I would not have asked an ordinary child to do the things you have done for me. I am well aware of your past." 

"His past?" Ciela echoes. 

"His _what_?" Linebeck still manages to sound louder than the fairy. 

"That." Tetra mutters darkly. 

"So there'll be another Hero to carry the Triforce of Courage, won't there? Because there was me, and then before me there was the Hero of Time and then there was a Hero before him, and a Hero before them and-" He's rambling and he knows it. He stops himself, because the Ocean King already knows all this, already knows who Link is. 

"You had the Triforce of Courage? And the Wind Waker?" Ciela yelps, and then starts flying in frantic circles around his head. "You?" 

"Yeah," Link thinks of a statue and a dying man and a collection of last words, "me." 

"I thought so." The Spirit of Wisdom adds, from her place by the Ocean King's head. 

"It seemed rude to ask." The Spirit of Power chimes in, red wings twitching sheepishly. Link had thought that they might know, really, because for all that Leaf and Neri were friendly, they were old like most spirits in the sea were. Ciela with her lost memory and abilities she couldn't quite remember how to use didn't have a clue, though and he was guiltily glad of that. 

"Well," she jokes shakily, "no wonder we get along so well. With what you've been through, you've more than earned that wish." 

So Link takes a deep breath, ignores the smell of rotting wood, the way Tetra's grip tightens on his hand and asks. "Can... Can you break the cycle? So that I'm the last and no one else has to go through that?" 

The Ocean King closes his eyes and Link knows the answer before he even speaks. He makes himself listen anyway. 

"I am sorry, my boy. The curse on your spirit is one too old and too powerful for even me to break. It is impossible for me to break the cycle that binds you." 

"I thought so." 

"You're a _god_ , how in all the Great Seas can whatever the kid asked of you be impossible?" Linebeck snaps, and he is again far louder than Link's quiet acceptance. There's something oddly comforting about it, in the same way the songs the captain spun together for him weren't exactly lullabies but worked anyway, that he doesn't understand and still wants to fight for Link. 

"The being that placed the curse is one far more powerful than me. That is all there is to it." The Ocean King sighs. "Ask anything else of me, my boy. I truly am sorry." 

Link stands there, holding Tetra's warm hand and thinking of all the impossible things he wants. He wonders if he should make a wish to make it easier for the one who comes next, no matter how far in the future it is. But no, he thinks of someone with a history of Heroes kept safe in stories and song. Someone who sung lullabies for the Hero of Time, and every Hero she's ever known, someone who took the time to learn the songs of the people she stood beside. 

The King of Red Lions wasn't the only one Link left at the bottom of the ocean. 

"The spirit inside the Master Sword," he starts, and next to him, Tetra gasps. Those fingers tighten around his hand and it almost hurts. He hasn't exactly told anyone about her before, the closest were a few vague references to Tetra, or the talk about songs with Linebeck.

"Fi," he asks and saying her name brings back echoes of a lullaby, "can you make sure she isn't lonely down there?" 

The Ocean King's gaze lingers. "I can see now how you have kept her loyalty throughout lifetimes, Hero. I will see it done. My spirits will visit her." 

"Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. I look forward to meeting her." Ciela whispers to him and he can hear a smile in her words.

He wonders if the sword still glows in the deep of the ocean where the sunlight doesn't reach, still shows the final agonised snarl on Ganon's stone face. He knows she still sings, he can sometimes hear it in the sea breeze, but ever since he washed up on Mercay Island, he hasn't heard it once.

(He will hear it again soon, when he isn't a whole world away. And then, in another life and years and years into the future, a boy will travel to a village named after the Hero's first home to study engineering. Sometimes, he will sit on the beach with his notes and listen to the songs carried by the sea breeze. Sometimes, he will talk back and feel rather silly about it, but the sword in the sunless depths of the ocean will hear him and be glad for it.) 

"Thank you." 

And then Linebeck has a wish, too. Somehow, between the two of them, the captain has the simpler wish. All he wants is his ship back. 

It's the ship that he started in as a simple man with dreams bigger than they had any right to be. It's the ship he used to ram into the monster that was attacking Jolene. It is the ship he uses to follow Link and Tetra through the rift between worlds.

It is not, however, on his own ship that Linebeck talks to Link next. He's invited onto the pirates' ship as soon as Tetra manages to yell louder than her crew. 

His first impression of the group is Tetra's smug 'see, here's your proof' and Link tackling him with a hug. 

"No need to be so excited brat, it's only been ten minutes." 

For reasons he doesn't understand yet, this sends the crew into another heated argument. When he's sure that they're all quite busy verbally tearing each other to shreds, Linebeck quickly hugs the kid back, and ruffles his hair. 

Tetra's voice is rising and Link just knows that he won't be the one in charge of swabbing the deck for months because someone has been dumber than he has for once, Linebeck keeps his hand on Link's shoulder even when he has to introduce himself to the rest of the crew, sort of like parents would hover behind their shy children back on the shores of Outset, and the sunlight is warm on his face.

It's a perfect moment, and not the kind that has to be wished for, but the kind that just falls into place all by itself.


End file.
